Butterfly
by solaas
Summary: Lirin in stream-of-consciousness.


Butterflies are fun to watch. They're so pretty and fluttery, not caring about anything but flowers and nectar and sunshine. My favourites are the birdwings, especially the great golden one. It's so _bright_!

We don't have bright stuff in the castle. It's all boring and stony and sad. An' after my Mother took in those humans, it got really weird too. It's like, it's like an itch I can't scratch--though I try! I just dunno how to scratch _inside_ you know? I wonder if butterflies itch.

Once I was bored and snuck away from Hotojou, I sat for ages in a tree and watched a butterfly break free from, I dunno what they're called--I never remember to ask Yaone, but they look like really tight, brown-grey sleeping bags made out of paper or some kind of fabric? So anyway, I just sat there looking at it and I wondered if I should help it. It was really struggling, you know?

But then I thought that maybe it didn't want my help, 'cause there are things you just have to do yourself. Like onii-chan. He's got all these things he's gotta do for himself, and he won't let me help him. So I let the butterfly break free on its own, and I smiled at it when it folded its wings out. For a few moments I even forgot that I was getting hungry. That was really slow, too--the wing-spreading thing. It's weird how something so big can fit into something so small, like that sleeping bag thingie.

I wonder if that's how onii-chan's Mother will be when he gets her outta that rock? All trembling and slow, stretching her fingers and loosening her muscles, waiting for her blood to run through her veins the way it should. And then--and then maybe she'll open her arms, like a monarch unfolding its wings, and hug Kougaiji and hold him.

I bet he'd be really embarrassed if she did that while we watched! But I'm sure he'd love to hug her--he _should_! The way he talks about her, and the way he always goes down there to look at her face on that rock, she must be a really nice person. Onii-chan wouldn't love someone so much if they weren't good people.

It really sucks that my Mother is such a mean person. I don't think she even likes me. She'll never be like a butterfly, no matter how wide she wears her sleeves. Mother is more like those skinny wasps who lay their eggs in bugs and moths and even butterflies. She's not good people, and she's treating onii-chan really lousy.

I wish they'd let me go out more. It's really gloomy in Hotojou, and the others here are just boring. It's all work, work, work and no play. I hate sitting cooped up in Yaone's lab all day. I only stay there when I know she's really tired, 'cause she's good people. Onii-chan likes her a lot, and I like her too. Half of the times I sneak off, it's just to get her to follow, 'cause Yaone needs to get outside too.

Sometimes I think she looks a little like one of those pretty moths that only fly at night; all fluffy and silent and sweet. She's not a mouse at all, cause mice just run away. Yaone doesn't run. I've seen her fight, and it's almost like a dance, like the moths do when it's a full moon.

Doku's no butterfly or moth, though. If he's anything fluttery at all, it's a buzzy bumblebee. He and that tall half-human that travels with baldie seems to know each other, I wonder how. I gotta ask him sometime when he's not yelling at me over something. Really, I don't get why they don't trust me with anything. I'm not a little kid and I can take care of myself!

I wonder if she'll think of me as a wasp-child. I mean, I really wanna see onii-chan's Mother freed from the rock, but...what if she don't like me? I don't think onii-chan's gonna let her hurt me, even if she _is_ his Mother. He's just not like that. 'Snot my fault that Mother is my mother. I wish we could just get that scarf with the squiggles on, give it to Mother and be done. Then onii-chan would get his Mother back, and we could all just leave this ugly, smelly castle.

I just want onii-chan to be happy, you know. He's frowny and worried most of the time an' I can't remember the last time I heard him laugh. I think Doku and Yaone would like to hear it too. We just have to get out of here, because the only real laughter in here is mine and even that... It's that itch at the back of my head, I think. That's why it's so hard to laugh in here.

Well, that and the fact that this place is totally dead and boring. I found butterflies in here once, but they were all dead. I guess they were just as colourful and stuff, but it just wasn't right. There wasn't any fluttering, no sun on their wings and they were all skewered with pins. Dead butterflies in a dead castle; no one's gonna try to revive _them_, I thought, so I gathered them all in a box and took them away to the forest and buried them.

I wonder where butterflies go when they die...


End file.
